[downtown]
(ziada pandelle)
This hour of the morning, and many people are just stirring from their beds, or scurrying home from late night benders in hopes of cleaning up enough that their workers can't quite tell. Not so with the young girl who moves like a shadow across the sidewalks. Her head is down, her walk purposeful and quick, yet she doesn't seem to make any waves as she passes by others, gliding by without touching, without looking up, without garnering any interest at all. It's something she's very good at. Most kids are taught to be seen and not heard - she tends to avoid both. Her soft curls hide her chocolate colored eyes, falling over soft caramel colored skin. Her uniform is perfectly pressed, black skirt, white shirt, and a white sweater draped over her shoulders and held closed with a golden chain at her throat. black tights, and sturdy working shoes, and she still seems fragile, easily breakable in the early morning light.
(danya)
This hour of the morning, and many people are just stirring from their beds, or scurrying home from late night benders in hopes of cleaning up enough for their coworker's discovery to either find complication's delay or never come at all. Purpose, Paranoia. Some endeavor that must crucially take place before the nearing rise of relentless sun.
Nearly six a.m. - and the young mulatto girl is not the only casually blending into the observing sidewalk. Somewhat and somehow removed from the pre-dawn competition. A tall young man has staked sentinel location on a corner just two blocks ahead, right outside of a donut shop that's been open since one minute past nearby bar's last call.
He sips on the steaming coffee cupped by one hand. Wafts of today's chosen flavor drifting from beneath his lipline, over the steeply angled slavic features,and beyond the spikey tips of black hair towering six-foot-plus above the sidewalk. Dark lashes fall half-mast before darkly greened eyes. Heavily lidded expression brought on either by the night's exhaustion, day's reluctance, coffee's sedation, or the music that must be at fault for the cords draping down either side of squared jaw and shoulders to a portable device hidden just out of sight.....
It is hard to precisely tell.
(ziada)
Though she moves like shadow and light, gestures a dance of their own, it doesn't mean she is unobservant. She couldn't be, and still pull the sidestep that she does to avoid an early paperboy on a bicycle barreling past. She pauses, finally, just before the donut shop, lashes flicking up briefly toward the man standing there with his coffee and his music, but dropping so quickly it may not have happened at all. Nervous fingers pluck at the edge of her sweater, tugging it tighter over her left shoulder, smoothing it carefully over the arm that is hidden from view, all but the hand where fingers curl in, virtually useless. The bag over her shoulder is shrugged higher as she tucks curls behind her ear only to have them spring free again - a never-ending battle. She waits until she's caught her breath from her hurry, not wanting to dip inside and have to repeat her order more then ocne. again. she wanted to die the last time when she breathlessly stuttered to the baker what she wanted.
(danya)
She slight, young girl draws to pause all but within his shadow. It seems something she so diligently tries to avoid tresspassing upon, as if the very darkness would take offense.
His blood is the Lord of such things, after all.
And the presence draws dark eyes away from whatever it was they patiently gazed upon. Windowshade lashes drawing open, following languid blink personifying the tall creature as something decidely more feline than anything he truthfully relates in ancestry. There is no movement beyond the shifting attention of sideswing gaze. His shoulders remain where they rest against the bricks neighboring donut-shop glass. His boots remain crossed at the ankle where they support the entire lounge of his remaining bodyweight.
Only after she stutters inside does he choose to take another slow sip.
(ziada)
He looks at her, and it's as if her breath is stolen, and she flicks that gaze up at him again, unerringly catching his gaze for just a brief moment in time. Eyes widen slightly, spine stiffens, and she resembles a deer caught in the headlights more with each passing moment, and then just as suddenly it's gone, and she is gone, as she slips inside, the door barely opening enough to allow fragile frame, slender to the point of skinny, to slip inside with the barest amount of disturbance to the bell above the door.
It is a few moments, but she soon returns, taking a grateful breath of air outside of the shop, carefully avoiding crowding him and his space, the bag in her hand filled with this mornings orders for the Missus and Mister.
(danya)
The deer escapes veridian headlights and vanishes within the store's shelter. From faintly curved lips, the low sound of a chuckle disrupts coffee's steaming coil. By the time she returns with bag clutched tight, the sound has disappeared itself into the early morning's scant traffic.
However, the dark green gaze remains spotlight which she steps back within. As if it had never moved away during her absence.
As if waiting.....
(ziada)
He was waiting. Or maybe not, but the press of his gaze causes color to darken her cheeks slightly, hidden under the fall of softly curled chocolate about her face, her lashes falling to brush cheeks before raising slightly once more. Gaze on the ground, as weight shifts from foot to foot flight or fight of flight or flight or flight... and she juggles the bag somehow or attempts to, in order to make sure her sweater is properly draped, before she even dares a glance upwards, never quite meetin the taller man's gaze. Even reclined, he towers over her by at least a foot, if not more and her glance actually stops somewhere around his chin.
(danya)
"Is there something you wish to speak of."
The words hardly a murmur, were she not so attentive to the features beneath his chin, she would have missed the flexion of larynx and jaw which signalled the arrival of speech. His eyes have drifted away. Neither studying the young, nervous girl, nor whatever earned their attention before her arrival. Instead, they close as he enjoys another slow swallow of the steaming liquid.
(ziada)
He speaks, and she watches the way his lips form the words, each dripping from within in a murmured liquid caress that captures her attention more then she would ever admit. He doesn't look at her, and a quick shift upwards of her gaze sees that his eyes are closed. The instant she realizes she is staring though, her gaze drops to the cement by her feet, her head shaking in a cascade of curls. "N...no sir. Y..you was..were...watching me.. s'all." Her voice is perhaps exactly what one would expect. Soft, murmured, timid, and ultimately entirely respectful.
(danya)
He waits, patiently, for her to formulate stuttering answer frought with grammatical errors collecting until the sum is enough to make any schoolmistress sigh. Dark eyes blanket her form once again as the tall man finally turns his entire face towards her apparent lack of visual attention.
Yet royalty always knows when servants wait in rapt anticipation.
Danya takes his time responding. Drawing out the moments counted by streetlight cycle. Only at the second appearance of bloodthirsty red half-block to their South do words drip steam-laced to her ears.
"Then, instead, is there something you wish of me to speak?" There is levity in lagoon pool eyes, would she dare meet them to check. Casual humor curves the corner of his mouth far above the line of downcast sight, of which he knows she would not peek to find. "Otherwise, you will have to forgive my mistaken conclusion as to why you continue to grant my audience."
(ziada)
The moments drag by and fingers tug nervously at the edges of her sweater, where it shows signs of near constant abuse in just such a way. She swallows hard, her eyes closing briefly, as he voices his question and her head shakes again. "...no...no sir..." and she does dare to peek up, just once, but only after he is done speaking, and it's so quick that it barely constitutes an actual glance. she adjusts the bag in her hand, and fidgets. Through it all, her left arm hangs uselessly, and unmoving at her side. "I...i don't..." she stops, full lips pressed together briefly before in a rush "Iwasjustcatchingmybreathbeforegoingback"
(danya)
Idle hands follow their own occupatory paths - one fidgets at hems while another hangs useless at bay, another set negligently taps the tips of long fingers on the outer curve of styrofoam, and yet four more worth with fifth thumb unseen to adjust the volume in his earbud headphones. His unseen hand lifts to remove a low-profile earpiece from his right lobe, supporting it's fall to dangle against flank protected by smartly tailored dress-shirt.
"Oh?"
(ziada)
He gives her more of his attention in just the subtle drop of headphone from his ear, laying it to rest on his chest while she continues to fidget, her soft gaze shifting to look at the street, to someone who passes by a little to close and has her shifting her weight back against the wall, though never quite intruding on danya's chosen claimed space. She returns to her previous stance, though she shifts her weight from foot to foot, nervously. "...yessir." a swallow - she knows well enough that's not enough of an answer. "...M....mornings at work are the worst..."
(danya)
"What is it that makes your opinion so?"
The soft phrase is as much statement request as curious question. Now that the earphone dangling no longer mutes composition against audial case, she may just be alert enough to hear the errant strains of soothing symphony escaping into the night.
(ziada)
She lifts her eyes, only as far as the dangling headphone, listening for a moment as she phrases her answer, hopefully so as not to stutter much, hopefully so as not to get the answer wrong. If there even is an incorrect answer. "I.." stop. "Th'master, he doesn't sleep well, and... he yells..." One gets the feeling that yelling is almost as bad as if he actually struck the shy girl.
(danya)
A black brow lifts towards equally dark spikes of hair. "What is it that makes him yell."
(ziada)
Swallow. full lower lip pulls between her teeth, only to be let loose again, slowly, before she admits "I...i do.. I.. get nervous.. and drop things..."
(danya)
"What is it that makes you so nervous?"
(ziada)
She doesn't answer at first, and maybe there's a while that he may think she won't, either. But she doesn't move away, so perhaps she is just searching for the right words. Deep in her gaze, if anyone looked far enough, is a spark of true intelligence - though it seems it doesn't seem that she'd ever let anyone look that deep. "...people."
So simple, so all encompassing. "I... I don't do well with most people... I.. hide.. a lot." brows furrow slightly, as that's not quite what she means, but close enough.
(danya)
"Everyone has reasons to covet their secrets. You are not any different, nor am I." Square shoulders lift in a shrug flexing against bricked wall. "The question that remains is adaptation, and the strength it may bring. You should not do unwell with your current employer unless you are newly amongst his staff?"
(zi)
The smallest of grins flits across her lips, there and gone so fast that one likely doubts it even existed in the first place. ".. a couple of weeks is'all.." She adjusts her fingers around the handle of the bag, so that she can brush wind tossed curls away from her forehead, only to have them fall back into place again as she rests her hand above her left elbow, holding wasted arm closer to her side. "I...i spent a week getting lost o..on the busses... that m..made him yell too.."
(danya)
"Any employer would frown upon their staff's unexcused absense." The statement dropped without emotion, for it is nothing more than general occupational fact.
(zi)
Her head snaps up "I was never late or absent! Just lost." a spark of something in her eyes, but then she drops that gaze away again, and flushes, color darkening her cheeks at the outburst, no matter how soft.
(danya)
"And you explained to him the situation sufficient for his understanding?" Once more, that ghosting smile graces his lips before washed away by mouthful of coffee, it is not mockery that delineats his glance of humor, but rather a wry understanding that given her present explanation - perhaps not. "Then perhaps you should not tempt his disapproval by risking a first demerit upon your record."
(nessa malikoff)
Nessa heads up the street and towards a pastry shop, her turn to pick up fatty sugary american treats for the office. She's in nondescript work clothing, utterly nothing outstanding today about her, even her skin slighlty sallow in hte unflattering colors she wears. Just a woman who will work at that company and barely be noticed.
Danya she remembers, something abouut him vaguely familiar again.
(zi)
She sucks her lower lip between her teeth again, and chews it thoughtfully, though she shakes her head at the first. admitting softly. "I just let him yell."
She glances up at him, again, and then nods. "Yessir... if you'll excuse me then..." she knows a subtle dismissal when she hears one...
(danya)
Subtle, but not abrupt. It is, after all, with her best interest in mind given strict observation. "Then consider this a primary step towards future behaviors which will not incur such wrath." Dismissed neatly, just as his form pulls precisely from it's languished state against the wall, returning to his own previously appointed task with each bootstep greeting the Southbound sidewalk.
(nessa)
Zaida is.. striking, pretty and terribly fragile. She wears it like a sign nearly, that do-not-beat-me attitude that.. well, Nessa has seen before, in teh Russian sept. Kinfolk, and humans, who'd been aroudn her tribe too long, those who didnt have the strength to survive what was easily dealt.
There is a hint of compassion to her dark blue eyes as she watches Zaida with Danya.
Danya leaves, and Nessa's gaze rests on him, trying to recall why it is he might seem so familiar.
(zi)
She is dismissed, and he walks away, and she barely contains the flinch as he pulls from the wall so suddenly, precisely, fluidly. She looks up at Nessa, and then her gaze drops away again. There's no reason the girl would remember her, after all. And once more, she begins her trek toward the Missus and Master's place to deliver her pastries.
[end]